San Francisco should go for 2020 Democratic Convention

San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell wasted no time answering the question from the Democratic National Committee. Within a day of receiving a letter from DNC Chairman Tom Perez about whether the city might want to compete to host the 2020 Democratic Convention, Farrell had his response en route.

“Obviously, we’re incredibly interested,” Farrell told me Thursday.

The timing could not be more perfect.

Chase Center, the Warriors’ $1 billion privately financed arena at Mission Bay, would have opened the previous year. It not only would provide all the latest amenities, it would serve as an object lesson to cities everywhere that professional sports teams can build their dream venues without taxpayer subsidies.

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Also the prosperity enveloping the region would serve as a reminder that the keys to a vibrant economy do not require race-to-the-bottom taxes or evisceration of environmental quality or the rights of workers or consumers.

Last, but hardly least, California is the capital of the resistance to a vainglorious president who has shown nothing but utter contempt for the institutions and mores of democracy.

“Our values are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party in the country,” Farrell said. “We represent those values with vigor. As we face the daily barrage of the Trump administration, I can’t think of a better place for the Democratic Party to root itself.”

San Francisco being San Francisco — where democracy is empowered in every neighborhood’s block — there will be skeptics about the possibility of inviting the world to four days of partying and politics, and nothing but partying and politics. This is how we roll in this city’s life. It’s inevitable, it’s healthy, but it is not insurmountable.

San Francisco is not the only city in the game for the 2020 Democratic Convention. Milwaukee has had a bipartisan group of leaders working on its pitch since last summer. That group intends to highlight its new NBA arena, its downtown development — and, of course, the importance of its 10 electoral votes that went to Donald Trump in 2016.

Did I mention that California has 55 electoral votes, which went to Hillary Clinton in 2016? Does loyalty count for anything?

Atlanta is expected to be another very active bidder for the Democrats’ convention. Its 16 electoral votes went to Trump, which makes it another inviting battleground for the party in 2020. Its appeal includes upgraded facilities and infrastructure and its status as the cradle of the civil rights movement.

But let’s dismiss the notion that a convention in a critical state somehow advantages a nominee in the general election. Or has anyone forgotten that Clinton, nominated in Philadelphia, lost the state and the 20 electoral votes she was expected to win handily in 2016?

Other cities are sure to join the fray before formal requests for proposals are issued this summer. The parties are not shy about making demands. The Republican National Committee already has put out a laundry list of what it expects of its 2020 bidders in an inch-thick document: from 16,000 “first-class hotel rooms” to 7,000 volunteers provided by the host committee to assurances that temperatures inside the arena and convention spaces would stay between 68 and 73 degrees.

San Francisco should not be deterred.

“One of the things that we do great as a city is that we shine in the international spotlight,” Farrell said. “We know how to put on events, and our city comes together.”

OK, to be honest, there is one thing working against San Francisco.

Four presidential nominees have emerged out of a major-party convention in San Francisco. Only one, Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, prevailed in November.

The other three lost in epic landslides: Democrat James Cox (34.1 percent) to Republican Warren Harding (60.3 percent) in 1920, Republican Barry Goldwater (38.5 percent) to Democratic President Lyndon Johnson (61.1 percent) in 1964, and Democrat Walter Mondale (40.6 percent) to Republican President Ronald Reagan (58.8 percent) in 1984. None of the three came close in California.

San Francisco can only hope the Democratic National Committee is not superstitious.

Before joining the opinion pages, he directed the newspaper’s East Bay news coverage. He started at The Chronicle in 1990 as an assistant city editor.

John began his journalism career as a reporter for the Red Bluff Daily News. Two years later, he was promoted to the Washington, D.C., bureau of the newspaper’s parent company, Donrey Media Group. After that, he worked as a general assignment reporter for the Associated Press in Philadelphia and as a statehouse reporter and assistant city editor for the Denver Post.

He graduated from Humboldt State University in 1977 with a degree in journalism. He received a Distinguished Alumni Award from HSU in 2009 and was the university’s commencement speaker in 2010.